1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control network system and the device setting on the control network system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the use of the Internet, the world's largest computer network, has been extended to such a degree that the information and services disclosed on the Internet are routinely utilized by and provided to external users accessing the Internet. New technologies for using the Internet have been developed and new computer businesses have been developed.
In the control network used for equipment control of buildings, as well as in the ordinary computer network, on the other hand, the employment of an IP-compatible control system has increased the demand for the IP compatibility of the end devices. Under the circumstances, however, the IP compatibility is limited to the simple IP introduction in the network layer, and the device control protocol remains unchanged in many cases. Also, no sufficient consideration is given for security and protection.
Many devices for control equipment have no sufficient user interface (UI) like personal computers (PCs) on the one hand, and the IP compatibility requires the network setting of each device on the other hand. Once all the nodes on the control network become IP compatible, a great number of nodes are required to be set. In such a case, the method of physically connecting and setting individual nodes is expensive. The automatic setting by use of a network, on the other hand, poses the security problem.
In the device installation in the conventional control system network, the devices are often required to be arranged according to the network design, and in some cases, a given device having a unique ID is always required to be located at a designated position. This poses the problem of complicating the actual construction work further.
It is preferable, therefore, that a great number of inexpensive control devices having no sufficient user interface can participate in the control network system having a sufficient security and protection mechanism. Also, preferably, the information requiring the previous setting in each node are as small in amount as possible, and each device can be set safely and easily from the control network.